The London Review of Books are selectively dropping their firewall each pandemic day. They say ‘Diverted Traffic is a new LRB newsletter, featuring a different piece from the archive each day – chosen for its compulsive, immersive and escapist qualities, and also for a complete absence of references to plague, pandemics or quarantine.’
It was there that I recently read about pigs. No matter your view on swine, I think there’s very a very relatable quote from John Miles in 1834 retold by James Buchan in ‘My Hogs ‘ in 2001: “‘A couple of flitches’ – i.e. sides – ‘of bacon are worth fifty thousand Methodist sermons and religious tracts. The sight of them on the rack tends more to keep a man from poaching and stealing than whole volumes of penal statutes, though assisted by the terrors of the hulks and the gibbet.’“
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